Sunday, November 15, 2009

Voyage II of the Lake Erie pelagic series sailed today, and I was on board. It was, to use an oft-abused word, awesome. Voyage I, which launched last Sunday, was a success but we one-upped 'em today.

Big kudos to Bob Faber of Discovery Tours and the crew at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory for putting these cruises together. They have been very well done and wildly popular, with both trips quickly booking. Our guides, John Pogacnik and Kenn Kaufman, were great, as was the captain and his sturdy vessel, the Holiday.

Part of the gang waits along the banks of the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland for departure time. We had about 50 people on ship, and with all of those keen eyes not much was overlooked.

Not long after exiting the mouth of the Cuyahoga and entering Lake Erie's open waters, we encountered this beautiful Peregrine Falcon perched atop a breakwall. Chances are good that it is one of the birds that nests on the Terminal Tower, or elsewhere on one of Cleveland's big bridges. He's got a good spot - ducks and gulls abound.

Not far down the breakwall, some sharpeye spotted a Purple Sandpiper, and with a bit of maneuvering by the captain, I believe everyone on the boat got a good look. Purple 'pipers are not common at all along Lake Erie, and it was a life bird for many.

By spewing a constant stream of popcorn behind the boat, we kept a constant massive entourage of gulls in tow. Of course, we were hoping for a rarity such as a Little Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Black-headed Gull or some such garbage-sucking gem to drift into the pack, but no cigar. Mr. Redenbacher's goodies pulled in plenty of Ring-billed, Herring, and Bonaparte's gulls, along with a Great Black-backed Gull.

There were plenty of uncommon birds, though: White-winged Scoter, Merlin, Bald Eagle, a beautiful dark morph Pomarine Jaeger that many got to see well, an unidentified distant jaeger that was likely a Parasitic, some Snow Buntings, and several Black-crowned Night-Herons.

Red-breasted Mergansers are building up on the lake, and we had perhaps 5,000, although their swarming circling flocks are devilishly hard to estimate. There were also plenty of Common Loons and Horned Grebes lounging about.

I've got plenty more photos and even some cool video to slap up here soon.

2 comments:

Hey Jim, Thanks for being there and for lending your awesome birding talents to the trip. You were spotting birds and helping others to see them all day, being a de facto leader yourself. Much appreciated. Hope to sail with you again.

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About Me

I am a lifelong Ohioan who has made a study of natural history since the age of eight or so - longer than I can remember! A fascination with birds has grown into an amazement with all of nature, and an insatiable curiosity to learn more. One of my major ambitions is to get more people interested in nature. The more of us who care, the more likely that our natural world will survive.

About the photos, and permission to use

Unless specifically noted, all photos used on this blog are by Jim McCormac, and are my copyrighted property. If you are interested in the use of any of these photos, please contact me at jimmccormac35 AT gmail DOT com. I am sometimes fine with loaning photos for educational or non-commercial uses, but please ask! I do not give permission for carte blanche use of photos from the site, so please do not ask.

I've been taking photographs for a few decades, but never became fully interested and engaged in photography until 2003. That's when I got my first digital camera. Since then, photography has become a passion and a steadily growing addiction. If you delve back far enough into this blog, you will see photos that were made with a variety of Panasonic point & shoot bridge cameras. Then came a Canon Rebel DSLR, followed by a Nikon D7000. I've since returned to Canon, and use their gear almost exclusively. My camera body is a Canon 5D Mark III, which is an awesome full-frame sensor camera. The lens bag includes the following Canon lenses: 100mm f/2.8L-macro; the sensational but bizarre MP-E 65 mega-macro; a 17-40mm f/4L wide-angle; and a 500mm f/4L II, sometimes used with a 1.4 extender (which makes it a 700mm). I've also got a Tamron 70-200mm (great lens!). I do lots of macro, and my typical flash gear is the Canon Twin-Lite setup. If the gear needs three-legged stabilization, it is mounted on a Manfrotto tripod, attached to an Induro Gimbal head. Finally, I've got a GoPro Hero, which is fully waterproof and can be used for underwater work. Sometimes I even use the camera or video feature on my iPhone 5S smartphone - it's amazing how good phone cameras have become.

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